


Synchronicity

by Gourmet



Series: Commissions [1]
Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-26
Updated: 2014-10-26
Packaged: 2018-02-22 16:08:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2513867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gourmet/pseuds/Gourmet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"There was a moment after the Drift of stark, almost blinding, clarity. A spell of synchronicity where everything was sharp, apparent, and they spoke in tandem."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Synchronicity

**Author's Note:**

> Commissioned by [Chal!](http://infamousbloodevoker.tumblr.com/)

There was a moment after the Drift of stark, almost blinding, clarity. A spell of synchronicity where everything was sharp, apparent, and they spoke in tandem. Stuttering, yes, as their bodies were still affected by the poorly constructed equipment that fostered the connection, but their minds were not. They spoke out loud because that was how they had always had to communicate - in sarcastic, shouting levels of loud and louder. To drive in a point. To be understood by someone who had no understanding of them at all. So they spoke out loud because it was familiar and habitual.

They did not speak when they left Baby Otachi. There was no conscious thought in leaving the corpse and destruction behind, and there was no conversation needed to get them from that place of union to a phone. They had to get back to LOCCENT. They had to tell everyone what they'd learned. Time was of the essence, and they didn't have any to spare on oddities like the way Newton seemed to favor one leg with phantom weakness or how Hermann found himself aching for the kaiju corpse they left behind.

It wasn’t until they were left to wait, standing on a portion of the harbor that had, graciously, not been treated to as much destruction as the other half, that the clarity they had gained started to grey. And it was no more a conscious realization than leaving the kaiju had been, but it was there nonetheless, a muddling creeping up between them. It may not have been Newton who noticed the oddity first, but it was, unsurprisingly, Newton who put a voice to it. Still reliant on the need to verbalize his thoughts. And while Hermann was quieter, it was with a touch of unease that he realized he suspected his companion’s words before he truly heard them.

“Hermann, dude, do you feel...kinda weird?”

Hermann placed his cane more firmly on the ground between his feet and stood a bit straighter, as much to ground his nerves as to differentiate himself from Newton’s pacing.

“I vomited in a derelict commode after using your equipment, and we are loitering on the cusp of certain death for our species. I cannot say I feel _well_ _,_ Newton.”

Newton waved his hands around in a way that an onlooker would have assumed was warding off some sort of flying insect. “You know what I mean!”

Of course he did. Hermann had the dubious pleasure of being quite fluent in all of Newton’s yammerings and mannerisms. Regardless of how they might have felt on the matter, there was no denying the sway they held with one another. Yes, they fought and they bickered in the lab - or anywhere they happened to be together, really. But they also knew one another. There was no avoiding it after ten long years of working in and out of tandem but always together, always around each other. So, yes, when Newton’s entrails ended up on his side of the lab, Hermann puffed up and scowled and shoved them back. And when Newton began talking too quickly to be understood, more hand gestures than fully coherent sentences, Hermann translated for their superiors. Sneering and deriding, more often than not, but he translated nonetheless.

Hermann knew what Newton meant. But for once, that did not appear to be a product of too much time together in too small a space. Or perhaps it was? They had run out of things to focus on, to distract them. And that left them with little to do but wait. Wait and pay attention to things that had not been noticeable or present before the Drift. Newton stopped his pacing long enough to scowl at him, and his lips didn’t move but to draw down at the corners, but Hermann heard him anyway.

_You know what I’m talking about!_

He didn’t really hear Newton’s voice in his head, but he understand the look as if they were speaking. In return, he wrinkled his nose.

_You always presume so much, Dr. Geiszler._

_Dude, Newt! Neeewwwt!_

And for a moment, Hermann was struck by a pang, a sudden desire to abide by that horrendously familiar - and ridiculous - nickname. Newt. Something that was still odd, but cool. Cooler than Newton. Something that might buy him some respect from his classmates. His peers or professors. His students. Coworkers.

Hermann had no way to prepare for the sudden flood of emotion through him, accented most predominantly by a pain that was faded, reduced mostly into nostalgia. It was familiar in its way, not at all unlike the phantom aches of his own grade school years. But there was a pointed, disturbing edge to this pain that was highlighted by the fact that it wasn’t his own. He stiffened, pulling his shoulders back, and Newton fixed him with one of those obnoxiously knowing stares.

Because if he could translate for Dr. Geiszler, he was under no delusions that others felt the reverse was true.

Newton opened his mouth as if to speak before shutting it again. And wasn’t that an oddity in and of itself? Newton wasn’t exactly known for holding his tongue in the best of situations, so it was always something worth paying attention to when he made an effort. Not that it kept Hermann from catching what went unspoken over whatever threads of connection continued to linger after their makeshift Drift.

_How much did you see?_

“It appears your machinery has had a certain lingering effect,” Hermann stated, wrinkling his nose. Shunting aside his acknowledgement of the not-words lingering in the back of his brain. Along with...Newton. Memories that didn’t belong to him. Emotions that weren’t his own. A voice and a presence that made his skull feel too small.

“Hey! There’s nothing wrong with my work!” Newton protested, pouncing on something familiar. A fight! They needed a fight!

Hermann couldn’t disagree with that. Arguing was familiar. Arguing was safe. And honestly, it absolutely was the fault of Newton’s equipment.

“My equipment is fine! This didn’t happen with the kaiju!”

“With the kaiju brain matter?!” Hermann snapped, narrowing his eyes. “It wasn’t even a fully functioning piece of the monster.” The pang that shot through him was not his own, but it invaded him until a flush of guilt took over.

Newton, in typical dramatic fashion, threw his hands up. “Okay, fine, that wasn’t a good example! But this isn’t my fault!”

Hermann narrowed his eyes. “Are you implying this is _my_ fault? Oh, I expect indecency and ill-placed sympathies from you, Dr. Geiszler, but this is impressive, even by your standards.”

“That’s not what I meant!” That was exactly what he meant. “Ugh! I don’t mean yo _u r_ fault! It wasn’t designed exactly like the Jaeger system. There wasn’t ever supposed to be someone sharing the neural load!”

_So it_ is _the equipment’s fault._

_No, dude! You’re not even listening! We were doing things with it that it wasn’t ever meant to do!_

_Then the fault is yours for not designing it properly._

_Oh, come on, you only agreed because the world was totally going to end if you didn’t!_

_That is no excuse for not properly configuring your machine. Honestly, Newton, even you should understand the importance of accounting for all possibilities._

_****Uh, was kind of limited on what I could rip apart for this thing, you know._

It wasn’t until Hermann narrowed his eyes to turn the verbal argument into a clash of disapproving expressions that he realized they hadn’t been speaking at all. Just glaring silently at one another with the errant hand gesture on Newton’s part. And wasn’t that a disturbing discovery? At least, it should have been. Honestly, by that point, it was just...what it was. The lingering side effect of Newton’s failure in engineering - _Hey!_ \- which would hopefully clear up on its own.

_But what if it didn’t?_

A stillness settled between them, and it was suddenly hard to determine who’s thoughtfeelingwords it had been. It didn’t really matter. It was between them now, an odd consideration that hovered someplace between dread and scientific curiosity. What would it be like to be in one another’s heads for the rest of time? However long that happened to be.

_Terrifying_ was the first sensation to flood between them, cutting and harsh. The prospect of being trapped within each other was a terrible thought. They barely tolerated each other on a day to day basis as things currently stood, after all.

But... _is that really true?_

Hermann glanced up again sharply, certain that particular trail of thought hadn’t come from within himself, and Newton rolled his eyes.

“Look, I don’t want you in my head forever, either, but you gotta admit, it feels like we already are sometimes, right?”

“There is a marked difference between being familiar with one another and _this_ _,_ Newton,” Hermann pointed out, waving his cane for emphasis.

“Well, yeah, duh.”

Newton crossed his arms and made a face that suggested he wanted to say more. And unfortunately for both of them, it trickled through the odd bond they’d developed.

_Loneliness_ crept in to dull the edges of terror, casting the situation in shades of bleak and gray. Because it was there, a shared ache that had nothing to do with the post-Drift connection. There was no denying their similarities, after all. Not after ten years together, and certainly not after the Drift had laid open and bare all of the details of their past. They had always been outcasts. What made them brilliant and tenacious led to them standing on a half-shattered harbor waiting for an airlift to save the world. And it had also culminated years of bullying and shunning, professional smiles and endless, solitary hours of work.

Despite all their bickering and genuine irritation with one another, there was still a companionship there. Nobody wanted to have anyone trapped in their head for eternity, but if they did, well, at least there was a silver lining of sorts.

Hermann waved it off. “We can hardly tolerate each other, Newton. We would drive each other crazy.”

_We already drive each other crazy_ _,_ Newton snorted, and Hermann wrinkled his nose when he realized he was doing it on purpose, forgoing words as there was still no real need for them. Newton grinned. Hermann glared. Newton laughed.

_Affection_ swelled so fast it was hard to pick up on the slighter threads of _attraction_ and _desire_ that chased it, rolling warm and bright across the bridge between them. Hermann watched Newton’s eyes go wide and round behind the smudged, cracked lenses of his glasses and knew inherently through that same connection that he was just as red as his colleague had turned.

Newton started sputtering, always one to try and cover his mistakes with mangled words, but he had no means of hiding the meaning of them now.

“Th-That wasn’t me! I mean, what the hell was that?! We just work together, man, and yeah maybe you’re not that bad to be around, b-but that doesn’t mean I...a-any of that! Seriously, where did that even..!?”

_We’re probably about to die. And I don’t wanna die without at least kissing you once._

Newton knew the moment Hermann understood his babbling because his teeth came together with a snap, and the color rose so fast in his face that Hermann felt the brief rush of dizziness that overcame him.

_Newton, you are an imbecile._

“What!? Why would you say that?!” he protested, immediately defensive, scowling even, and Hermann fixed him with a flat stare. It took a few more stoic moments before he tentatively poked at the bond. “...Oh... “

_Yes. Oh._

Newton grinned, and Hermann had a brief moment to regret pointing out the mutual affection to the idiot.

_See? This is why I don’t bring this shit up. You’re so mean to me!_

_****You’re an idiot, more often than not, and you deserve it._

But Newton just laughed and closed the space between them with a few steps. Why bother denying it anymore, right? The world was ending, after all. And it should have been unsettling how much better it felt to be close, but it really wasn’t. Hermann narrowed his eyes when Newton took his face between two absolutely disgusting hands, and he laughed again. Was still laughing when he leaned up and pressed their mouths together.

The feedback was beautifully bizarre. Hermann was aware, in equal parts, of the feeling of Newton’s chuckling mouth and the ghosted sensation of his own downturned lips. But even a level amount of his own irritation did little to offset the flood of _warm_ and _pleasant_ and _happy_ that circled between them. Yes, the world was definitely falling apart around them, but they weren’t alone.

And they didn’t have to be now.

Implicitly, Hermann knew that even if the bridge between them faded, this connection had shared too much. Years of attraction masked in snipes and snide remarks and unusual displays of almost-friendship all overshadowed by an overwhelming sense of duty. They had to save the human race, after all, romantic involvements were a distraction neither of them could afford to take the risk on. And here it was, all those years passed between the press of their mouths that had somewhere become harder, more desperate, amusement bleeding into the harsh reminder of their potentially fleeting mortality. And that was _too fucking poetic for a kiss, just shut up and enjoy it, Hermann._

Eventually their ride came, engines and propellers screaming overhead and forcing them apart. And all at once, the fate of the world was on their shoulders again. They had to get back to LOCCENT as fast as this thing could fly, had to stop everyone before they wasted their last chance on a plan that was destined to fail. There wouldn’t be time to focus on the bond between them for hours, until after the breach had been closed and lives had been lost, but _By Jove!_ the world would be saved.

But until then, they sat close enough for their knees to touch and remained silently, unconsciously grateful for the steady presence in the back of their minds.

No matter what happened, they weren’t alone.

 


End file.
